The Wall Street Journal wrote that the giant Japanese tech firm, SoftBank and some others, are investing a billion dollars in a three year old Silicon Valley firm. That part does not sound unusual. What is unusual is that the firm receiving the funds is Katerra who is in the factory produced construction business. Katerra describes themselves as a “technology company” who believes they can revolutionize housing and commercial buildings by using an assembly line to design and control everything. They have stated that by the end of 2018, they can build a house in 30 days versus a year conventionally. Wow!
And Tesla, some year, will be selling tens of thousands of their cars once they learn how to make them! Sorry, that’s another ongoing blog.
So far, Katerra does not report actual financial results but it claims over a billion dollars in “bookings” (not sales) to date but much of that has been with an affiliated developer. Hmm.
As readers may recall, we have seen and written about this circus before. My old company Donn lost a lot of money on this approach decades ago. I also wrote last year how Marriott Corporation is focusing on this as a way to lower construction costs and speed up the timetable to open new properties.
The article does point out some of the issues to making factory produced construction a reality. The construction industry is still very, very local in nature. Construction building codes vary, state by state, county by county and even city by city. Unions are a very complex factor as they are potentially losing work for their people. And although there are more national builders today, there are still a lot of small, local builders. And that doesn’t cover the cyclical nature or interest rate sensitivity of construction, etc.
Having been in the building materials/construction industry most of my career, I would remind SoftBank that this is a very tough business that doesn’t change much or very quickly. But, then again, so was the taxi cab business. I am just not sure that “technology” is going to change construction in the same way or in the near term future.
bradszootales 
Over the course of 35 years in the construction materials industry I also saw a number of initiatives attempting to revolutionize construction processes and thereby reduce costs. These involved everything from software to integrate and streamline workflow and supply chains to innovative fabrication techniques. Very few were successfully implemented, largely because of the factors you mentioned. That said, I love that you mention the taxi cab business because it’s a reminder that we should never say never.